Cadillac Whelen driver Jack Aitken set a new GTP course record at Watkins Glen during qualifying with his top time of 1:31.284, eclipsing the mark set last year by Renger van der Zande (1:31.558).
“I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job of getting a lap in and extracting performance from the tyre, but when you look a little bit deeper, I think it’s going to be a really cool race tomorrow,” predicts Aitken, the current GTP championship leader aboard the #31 Cadillac V-Series.R.
“I was expecting similar in quali, that it would be quite tight. The track changed a little bit, not just physically, but weather being a bit cooler at night – It’s quite quick. We got a lap in early, and then just couldn’t really improve after that. I tried a few times, and then just accepted that that was as good as it was going to get. It was more dreading someone else was going to pop a lap in, but it didn’t happen, thankfully.”
“I think all of Whelen Cadillac have been on a great roll, so nothing has really changed in the last few races.
“This is certainly a place I wanted to get pole since we came so close last year,” he added. “I wasn’t massively confident and try not to be too optimistic going into these things. We saw the #5 (JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche) was very quick, a bunch of other cars were in the mix as well, and it’s very easy to make a mistake around here. It invites you to push a lot and you can trip over yourself. So, I just try to take it steady and get a clean lap in and that turned out to be quite a good one.”
Aitken has also seemingly shaken off the frustration of the DNF at Le Mans two weeks ago, where he and co-drivers Earl Bamber and Sébastien Bourdais dropped out of contention for the win due to a power steering failure.
“I’ve not got the best record at Le Mans. I keep telling them they probably shouldn’t take me anymore – I’ve got a curse or something,” Aitken joked.
“It’s more because we were leading the race at some points, and we were truly in the fight. So, we picked ourselves up from that and thrown ourselves back in the IMSA side of things. There’s a lot we’ve learned from that race as well.”
GTD grid set by points, Winward moved to rear
As reported earlier, Russell Ward’s crash during GTD qualifying nullified the session and led to the class’ grid being set by full-season championship points.
For that incident, the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, which currently runs fourth in the GTD Teams’ standings, has been moved to the rear of the grid.
It’s also been confirmed that the championship points from Van der Steur Racing have transferred over to the Car Blanche (YRB Racing) entry despite the entrant and number change; the #068 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO will start ninth in its class.
No cars failed post-qualifying technical inspection so the rest of the field remains unaltered from the end of qualifying this evening.
Drivers don’t mind Bus Stop alterations
The portions of kerb at the entrance to the Bus Stop/Inner Loop chicane, which came apart during the Michelin Pilot Challenge race, have been removed for the remainder of the weekend; paint will be applied at the inside of the corner to provide a visual reference for the race on Sunday.
“The changes to the Bus Stop were pretty dramatic,” said GTD Pro polesitter Jack Hawksworth, who also set a new course record (1:43.701) during Qualifying “Going out there and trying to figure out the track and understand exactly how much of the kerb you could take compared to practice was interesting.”
“Certainly in our car, the curb that was previously in the Bus Stop, when we hit that with the center of the car, it was quite a big jump, which really changed the whole feel of the Bus Stop. Now you can really almost be up to the metal fence, kind of like the NASCAR guys do.
“It really doesn’t affect the car. It opens up the corner a lot more, the corners are quicker. Certainly for us in our car it was very, very different. It did all right, because you’ve got that guardrail (on the inside). Normally when we’re driving really close to the guardrail, it’s second or third gear corners, so it’s easier to judge exactly where the side of your car is. When you do it in fourth gear entering at 110 miles an hour to a corner like that, it’s quite difficult.
“It’s a challenge, but it’s balls to the wall. It was fun to drive, that’s for sure!”
Some prototype drivers, like Inter Europol Competition’s Jeremy Clarke, also feel the change even if they were inclined to use less of the kerb.
“Now that the curbing is mostly gone, it changes the line for us, and we’re able to kind of get more over and it opens up the entire corner. I’m sure we carry much more speed through there now,” remarked the LMP2 polesitter.
“With that new line, I think we can be a little bit more aggressive going into the brake zone of those corners where we have a bit more space now on the inside, to whereas before if you’re not quite alongside a GT before that section, they’re going to kind of squeeze you over into a spot that if you go over that, the car is done.”
Carrera Cup: Maxson bolsters championship lead with Race 2 win
Tyler Maxson had a mighty redemption effort today after a puncture took him out of contention in yesterday’s race. Today he and his #77 Topp Racing Porsche 992 Cup won, crossing the line six seconds clear of the rest of the field. Janne Stiak finished second with Callum Hedge hot on his heels, as he was the majority of the race under green conditions.
Race 2’s biggest incident came five minutes into the race when Rob Walker in the #53 JTR Motorsports car went straight into the tyre barrier in turn five, a high-speed crash that caused extended barrier repairs. 15 minutes after the incident, the field would return to green flag racing and remain green for the remainder of the race.
Patrick Mulcahy won once again in Pro-Am, finishing 11th overall for ACI Motorsports. Matt Smith in the ACI Motorsports car won in the Masters class after making his debut last round at the Miami Grand Prix. Smith defended strongly against Scott Blind of Ruckus Racing, finishing just 0.101 seconds behind him at the chequered flag.
Super Trofeo: TR3 Racing sweeps weekend in bizarre Race 2
Daniel Morad and Elias de la Torre ended up with the overall win in the #29 TR3 Racing Lamborghini Huracán, making it a clean sweep of the weekend for the driver duo. The #2 RAFA Racing Team car of Kiko Porto and Tyler Gonzalez finished second overall in Pro.
This result comes out of under five laps of green flag running in a dramatically incident-filled session that saw the top seven finishers on track penalised with an added 95 seconds for failing to pit during the brief pit window between major cautions.
The first of two major cautions that cut the 50-minute race short was an incident involving Luke Berkeley in the #73 Breathless Racing car, spinning the Giraffe-liveried #46 Precision Performance Motorsports car of Brandon Gdovic hard into the barriers up in the esses, a tight part of the track where Avery Towns (#55 Topp Racing) and James Lawley (#22 Atlantic Racing Team) made hard contact with Gdovic as well as each other, having nowhere to go.
All drivers involved were awake and alert post-race, but Gdovic and Lawley were brought to a local medical centre for further examination.
The race was red-flagged to repair the damage to the track and move the mangled cars off it, and would resume with just under 19 minutes left. Berkeley was parked for the remainder of the race for causing the aforementioned incident
Just after the green flag flew, an incident in turn eight between Christopher Koebbe (#66 Forty7 Motorsports) and Ray Shahi (#65 Taurino Racing) sent the #66 flying into a crash, and the #65 careening into the pit lane with smoke billowing out of the rear of the car. The #30 ANSA Motorsports car of Jeff Courtney was also involved, coming to a stop on track and throwing out a full-course caution that would finish the race.
The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing car, driven by Graham Doyle and Danny Formal, finished first in the ProAm class, and the #12 XONINE Racing car of Anthony Bullock picked up the win in Am. It was the #99 of Rocky T. Bolduc in the Topp Racing car who took home the win in LB Cup.
Images © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
